VGCC Nursing Instructors Selected for Duke technology program

A team of instructors from Vance-Granville Community College was one of ten recently selected from teams at about 70 colleges and universities across the country that applied for the 2007 Duke University TIP-NEP educational program. The VGCC team is composed of three Nursing instructors: Maria Orsini (team leader), Beverly Hudgins and Anna Wilson. “This program will provide us the knowledge and tools to further promote the integration of technology in our school’s nursing program,” Orsini said.“This achievement underscores the quality of the Nursing program at Vance-Granville,” VGCC President Randy Parker said. “The efforts of these outstanding faculty members, combined with the college’s partnership with Maria Parham Medical Center and other hospitals, show that the program is continually improving and adapting to give our students the most comprehensive, technologically sophisticated education possible.”TIP-NEP (The Technology Integration Program for Nursing Education and Practice) is an educational program for nursing faculty to explore new technology and its use in enhancing nursing education and clinical practice. Advances in educational and clinical technologies are increasing at an extremely rapid pace, potentially making it difficult for nursing faculty to stay current on existing and emerging technological developments. To address this need, Duke University School of Nursing, in collaboration with Western Carolina University and Fayetteville State University, was selected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop this innovative educational program.TIP-NEP will provide new information and skills to nursing faculty who seek to advance the inclusion of new educational and clinical technologies into the curricula at their home institutions. Selected nursing faculty teams from across the United States will have the opportunity to travel to Duke University to learn firsthand about technologies that are being used in nursing education and clinical practice. This knowledge, combined with strategies for curriculum revision, as well as discussion of the social, legal, cultural, and ethical issues related to technological advances, will enable faculty teams to return to their colleges with the skill set and didactic tools necessary to advance the knowledge into their curricula as well as to train other faculty members.In a congratulatory e-mail to the college, Duke University TIP-NEP coordinator Mary Paden noted, “Selection of teams for this conference was highly competitive; there were approximately seven applications for each available team slot. Your team’s application was among the strongest and your abstract was well-presented and innovative.”Orsini thanked Evelyn Harris, VGCC’s Director of Distance Education, for her help “making the instructors more confident in all our online and technological knowledge and skills.”The VGCC team will participate in and present at a conference/symposium in August, which will be held at the David R. Thomas Center on the campus of Duke University in Durham.The symposium will consist of classes and demonstrations addressing the use of information and other technologies as well as the social, legal, cultural, and ethical issues related to technological advances. Faculty teams will give a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation detailing an innovative project they have implemented or a technique they have used to promote the integration of technology into their institution’s curriculum. At the end of the symposium, faculty teams will be awarded up to $3,000 to use at their home institutions to advance the knowledge they have gained into their curricula as well as to train other faculty in the techniques learned.For more information on the program, visit the TIP-NEP website (http://www.tip-nep.org).Above: From left, VGCC instructor/team leader Maria Orsini, instructor Anna Wilson and instructor Beverly Hudgins composed the team that was selected for the 2007 Duke University TIP-NEP educational program. (VGCC Photo)